


Emergency Lessons

by Kalira



Series: Voltron Fluff Week 2017 [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Sharing warmth, Snow, Surfing, Voltron Fluff Week 2017, beach, sibling feels, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalira/pseuds/Kalira
Summary: Pidge, Lance, and Keith land in several 'emergencies' and pull each other through them.





	1. Necessary

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one was my first idea for Day 7 and also was first titled Emergency Lesson, which I decided fit the whole series of vignettes that turned into this, plus my second idea for Day 7's prompts, and the bonus non-prompt-related final chapter because well, I have a trio of adopted-siblings, they all need a moment front and centre, obviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Day 7 of Voltron Fluff Week - prompt: Beach Day ~~/Snow Day~~.

“What do you mean you’ve _never_ tried surfing?” Lance asked, making a pitiful face.

Pidge snorted. “Lance, I barely even go to the beach in general.” She waved one of her arms in his face. “I burn quick as _anything_ , and I don’t really like the outdoors. Anyway, what’s so great about surfing?” she challenged.

Lance looked almost like he had when she’d shocked him with her bayard, stumbling back with his hands over his heart, mouth agape. “What’s so great about- You _have_ to try, _right now_ , while we’re here at this beach.”

“How?” Pidge asked, honestly curious. “We didn’t exactly pack surfboards.”

“ _I will find a way_.” Lance said, shaking a finger in her face. Pidge eyed him. “It’s _absolutely necessary_ , my badass baby sister cannot _not know how to surf_ , it’s not allowed. Keith, back me up here, buddy!”

Keith straightened and looked towards them, startled, the energetic breeze coming in off the sea blowing his hair in his eyes yet again. Pidge thought about the headbands in her room and debated whether Keith would take one if she pointed out how much _easier_ it would be to do whatever he wanted with his hair held out of his eyes.

“I am literally from a desert, Lance.” Keith said pointedly. He took another step, the shallow water splashing a bit around his calves as another wave rolled in. “This is the closest I have ever been to an ocean on any planet.” he continued helpfully before bending down, his hands going back under the little lapping waves.

Lance looked horrified, and Pidge slapped a hand over her face. “Okay, calm down. If I can figure out how to get the Castle to manufacture something vaguely surfboard like, you can _try_ and teach me. And Keith.”

“Hey!”

“Would that be good enough?” Pidge said patiently, her lips twitching.

“Yes.” Lance said, sniffing. “And don’t think you’re getting out of it either, Keith!” he added, pointing threateningly at Keith, now sloshing up out of the water towards them.

“I did not agree to this.” Keith said, narrowing his eyes at Pidge.

She rolled her own. “Please, like you were going to get out of it. And you are _loving_ the ocean, what are you complaining about?”

“How much of your agreeing to his nonsense was so that you could get out of _being outside_ without Lance pestering you to come back out while you make a surfboard, and with a ready-made excuse for when the others get back?” Keith countered immediately, and Pidge opened her mouth, then closed it, inclining her head.

She wasn’t going to _admit_ to anything, but Keith . . . _might_ have a point.

“Come on! Surfboards don’t make themselves and we’ve only got the rest of the day!” Lance said urgently, and Pidge shook her head, amused.

“We’ll be here tomorrow too.” she pointed out, though she realised after she said it that she didn’t necessarily want to volunteer _that_ time for impromptu, emergency surfing lessons as well. “All right, I’m coming. I hope you know what kind of specs you want, because I don’t think the Altean computers are going to have a reference for surfboards.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Gah!” Pidge skidded backwards as a huge splash overtook her, knocking her from where she’d been sitting on her board. Strong hands caught around her ribs and dragged her up almost immediately, and she spluttered a bit and clung to Lance’s nearer shoulder as she reoriented herself to which way was up.

“You know, part of me really thought he’d be better at this.” Lance observed, catching the edge of Pidge’s surfboard and dragging it back towards them.

Pidge clambered back up and straddled it, grinning. “He _has_ been pretty fail.” she agreed, watching Keith come up from underwater, sputtering and shaking his head to throw off some of the water before swimming after his surfboard, which had shot off without him.

“You’ve been awesome, though.” Lance grinned at her and held up one fist, and Pidge laughed and bumped it with her own.

“Of course I have. _I’m_ awesome.” Pidge said smugly. “ _Maybe_ it’s more fun than I thought it would be.” she admitted, and Lance crowed, throwing his arms up in triumph. Pidge rolled her eyes and shoved at one of his shoulders with her foot, but of course Lance didn’t sputter as he bobbed under the surface and back up. “Seriously though, if I sunburn it’s your fault.”

“I’ll try and live with the guilt.” Lance told her seriously. “Sun’ll be going down soon anyway. I think.” He squinted at the sky over the ocean, where the sun looked like it was lowering towards the horizon. “The others will probably be back soon, too.”

Pidge nodded agreement. “It seems like we’ve had an uncharacteristic lack of things going wrong on this trip.” she added. “I like it. The trend should continue.”

“Oh, but we’d get _bored_.” Lance joked, hauling himself up onto his surfboard, then to his feet. He balanced himself effortlessly as he extended a hand to Pidge, helping her keep steady as she climbed to her feet as well.

“I think we could survive.” Pidge said, shaking her head.

“Up for another go?” Lance suggested, indicating the wave approaching them, and Pidge set herself for it with a grin, nodding.

It went well - she made it almost half as long as Lance did before wiping out, and didn’t hurt herself in the process of splashing into the wave as it swept over her - and Pidge decided it should probably be the last attempt for the day. She felt good mostly, but faintly sunburnt and her muscles were trembling with fatigue. She leaned on her surfboard instead, letting it buoy her up and enjoying the feeling of the cool ocean lapping around her body soothingly for a while.

“I feel like he’s going to roll off in his sleep.” Pidge said as Lance finally joined her again, resting her elbows on the edge of her surfboard and pointing at Keith. He’d given up attempting to surf some time ago, and was now lounging on his back on the board, floating around with his eyes closed. She wasn’t sure if he was actually asleep or not.

“I feel like going over there to make sure he does.” Lance said quietly, with a wicked grin, and Pidge laughed.


	2. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Day 7 of Voltron Fluff Week - prompt: ~~Beach Day/~~ Snow Day.

Lance stifled what sounded like a whine, folding his coat around himself a little more, like maybe he could find some extra scrap of warmth if he _really_ tried.

Actually, Pidge couldn’t exactly blame him. It was miserable up here and she very much wished that she’d bailed on this stupid mission entirely. She sidled up a little closer, shivering even deep in her parka and all but pressing against Lance. The thick coats they both wore meant he wasn’t much warmer than anything _else_ out on top of this stupid mountain when she cuddled up to him, but his body blocked some of the aching chill and cut the wind, at least.

“How are _you_ not freezing?” Lance asked, glaring a little at Keith, who was making his way carefully back down the slope he’d scaled to get a better look around them. Lance wrapped an arm around Pidge’s shoulders, tugging her in closer. “You lived _in a desert_.”

Keith bounded lightly down the rest of the way - the huge snowdrifts that had thrown up little waves with every step he had to fight through on the way up sent more snow tumbling down with him in a heavy, oddly quiet slide - and return to them.

“Deserts get cold at night, especially in the winter.” Keith explained. “And there are mountains in my desert. I’ve been up them, and climbed others, even when they’re snowy and miserable. Not _this_ bad, of course.” He glanced at the snowdrifts currently surrounding them, which were some of the smallest they’d seen up here and _still_ all at least waist-deep.

Pidge startled as Keith took her hands, clasping them tightly in his own and forcing her fingers to flex, which made them ache. She whimpered quietly in reaction. “Keep your hands in your pockets.” he advised as he let go. “Even with the gloves.”

Pidge nodded, then startled as Keith shed his own gloves, shoving them in a pocket. It was _way_ too cold for that. “Give me your hands.” he instructed, and Pidge held them out obligingly, curious.

Keith stripped off her gloves, too, and she hissed at the cold. “Your hands are thin, and you’re not used to the cold or to this kind of exposure.” Pidge shook her head, staring at Keith blankly as he let go of her hands, rubbed his own together harshly, quick, and then closed them tightly around hers. They were _hot_. “Friction.” he reminded, lips twitching.

“Of course.” Pidge said, frowning. It had just surprised her. Also she didn’t think her hands would actually get that warm at this point even if she rubbed them together, it felt like her _bones_ were freezing through.

Keith repeated the process, and Pidge let out a little moan as the heat leached into her hands, which felt slightly less stiff now. Keith helped her get the gloves back on before the borrowed warmth was stolen away entirely.

While he was doing that, Pidge glanced past him at Lance and laughed. Keith ignored her laughter, tugging her hat down further, almost over her eyes - it pressed her glasses down into her nose uncomfortably and she huffed, pushing them back up.

“Lance is pouting.” she told Keith quietly. He looked over his shoulder, then rolled his eyes, beckoning Lance over to them.

“You could try it for yourself.” Keith said dryly, though he obligingly helped Lance warm up his hands too, examining his fingers carefully first. “Why are _you_ so pitiful?” he asked, though despite the words, his tone wasn’t unkind.

“Man, I grew up _in Cuba_.” Lance glared over the collar of his coat, which he looked like he was trying to sink fully behind as his slim, bare fingers curled in Keith’s hands. “Do you know how cold it gets in Cuba?”

“No.” Keith admitted, releasing Lance’s hands with a light pat and rearranging Lance’s scarf around his neck as he put his own gloves back on.

“It _doesn’t_.” Lance said sullenly. “I’ve seen snow, like, _once_ in person before we launched off into space. I don’t like it much now I’m seeing more of it up close.” he added, almost sulkily.

“You’ll live.” Keith said, in what was really a pretty reassuring tone from Keith, and covered half of Lance’s face with the scarf as he rewrapped it and tucked it into place. “There’s more snow coming in, I saw it from up there. We should find somewhere out of the open. I’m sure they’re looking for us since we lost contact, but probably nothing will get a signal through that new system.” Keith added before either of them could protest.

Pidge shivered and nodded understanding and agreement, though her skin was crawling a little at the thought of being so isolated. Until when?

“Storm’ll probably pass relatively quickly.” Keith answered when she braved asking. “If this weather’s anything like similar systems on Earth, anyway, and thus far it all seems pretty familiar.”

“Do you have any plan for ‘out of the open’?” Lance asked, looking just as miserable as Pidge felt, the little bits of him she could see. Maybe more, honestly. Pidge tried to decide if that made her feel better or worse. “Only there’s a lot of ‘open’ out here and not much ‘out of’.”

“Yes.” Keith told them with reassuring speed and confidence.

Justified confidence, as it happened. By the time the storm - nasty, but not the worst Pidge had seen by far, even if she was unhappily in the _middle_ of this one - broke over them they were tucked in a smallish alcove made by a tumbled fall of rock and layers of ice and snow that felt just as solid.

After getting safely inside, Keith had explained how such crevices came to form, and how he’d found it, what to look for to find stable ones. Pidge hoped she was never going to be in a position to need the information - again - but mentally filed it away all the same. Besides, it had been distracting as she tried to keep her mind off of more worrying things.

Pidge frowned. She was feeling _less cold_ , which seemed like it might possibly be a worrying development, even if she was now out of the wind and tucked between Lance and Keith - who had taken a place nearest the door so he could watch the storm, with zero argument from either of them.

Normally Pidge might have protested a little at the boys automatically pushing her between them, but she was actually okay with being protected from the cold. Anyway, she wouldn’t be much of a buffer to the weather herself, she was too much smaller than either of them.

“Should I be feeling like I’m warming up?” Pidge finally asked with a little concern. “Isn’t that, like, a sign of hypothermia?” Lance made a startled sound and jumped like he’d been zoned out. Keith chuckled, and Pidge glared at him.

“No. It’s warming up in here, just from our heat and breathing.” Keith assured her. “It’s small, and the air is close. The snow building up,” he leaned out of her line of sight and gestured at the snow in front of the narrow opening, “is trapping more of the heat inside as well.”

“Oh good.” Pidge said, leaning back against the wall again and letting Keith’s narrow shoulders shelter her from the wind and bits of snow flying in from outside. “I was enjoying being less frozen and I would have been upset if it meant I needed to be panicky because I was going to die.”

“An explanation of how easily hypothermia is survivable wouldn’t be what you want to hear now, would it.” Keith said, deadpan, and Pidge snickered against his shoulder as Lance made a low sound of distressed agreement. “Yes, thought not.”

“You could move closer again, though; it’s still cold.” Pidge told him. “Do you have to be leaning out?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Lance answered for him, and dragged Keith back towards them. Pidge found herself being _squashed_ between the boys now. She elbowed herself enough room to breathe, at least, then settled between them as they all got comfortable, warm and sheltered from the powerful storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warming hands trick is something a somewhat brusque older boy did for me at a rapier practise in frigid weather years ago, and it was an amazing degree more helpful than anything I could do myself.


	3. Indoors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not inspired by any Fluff Week prompts, but after writing the first two it felt like there should be a third part with the focus on Pidge, so here it is.

“Hey, Keith!” Pidge called, and Keith swept his bayard in a wide arc before him, then yelled to end the simulation. He turned towards her, rubbing the back of his arm across his brow. “I want your help with something. Come with me?” she asked.

Keith shrugged, the blade of his bayard shimmering out, and headed over to her. “What is it?” he asked, and Pidge grinned, grabbing his arm and dragging him along with her.

She was under no illusions that he couldn’t have stopped her if he actually tried, but Keith didn’t even protest, just followed her obligingly. Pidge led him down the halls until they reached Lance’s door, which opened for them immediately, because he’d never turned off its automatic function.

“Hey, Lance!” Pidge grinned as he rolled off his bed in surprise, already wearing his pyjamas and robe. “Come with us!”

“What-”

Pidge was already heading off down the hall again, knowing that Lance would follow after if only to make sure she could hear his complaints about the way she’d asked for his company. Much quicker than explaining.

“What _are_ we doing?” Keith asked curiously as Lance caught up to them. Pidge bounced on her heels and grabbed Lance’s wrist with her free hand, towing both boys up a level and along to a recently-repurposed little room.

“Our last outing was a snow-encrusted mountain-top,” Pidge said, and Keith made a low noise, “ _our_ last outing, without the whole team or it being an emergency. Well, to start with.” she added, because the stranded-on-a-mountain thing had sort of turned into an emergency when they got _stranded_. “Before that there was that market where we almost got arrested - again - and before _that_ we went surfing, and swimming, and I got sunburnt.”

She glared at both boys, neither of whom had been nearly so affected. It had only been a mild burn, and it had cleared up entirely after a week, but it had still been uncomfortable.

“What does that have to do with dragging me out just at bedtime?” Lance protested, pouting. “And why are you all sweaty?” He prodded Keith.

“I was training. You were going to bed?” Keith’s brows arched.

“Moving on!” Pidge interjected before they could begin to squabble in earnest and get distracted. “Not that the surfing wasn’t fun, sunburn aside, thank you Lance; and . . . well the mountain wasn’t exactly fun but we survived and it was far less awful than it could have been, Keith.”

“Pidge?”

“Right, _yes_. Allura finally helped me rig up an interface for the console we bought, and we are going to play video games! Screw the great outdoors.” Pidge huffed.

“The great outdoors are currently . . . space.” Keith pointed out, and Pidge rolled her eyes and shoved him into the room.

“Not the point.” Pidge told him, and exchanged an exasperated look with Lance.

Pidge booted up the console, which lit up nearly the entire wall - Coran’s grandfather had evidently not known how to do anything small, and Allura wasn’t great at it either, really, perhaps it was an Altean thing. She collected the controllers and joined the boys on the large, plush seating set into the floor, flopping into the space between them. She wriggled, getting comfy there, and grinned as the opening titles played on screen.

Both boys gave her a run for her money, but Pidge kept ahead of them pretty handily for most of the rounds they played. Which wasn’t at all due to her having taken some practise rounds earlier, just to test out the system. Make sure it worked as it should.

And Allura had wanted to know how to play, after all, too, and Pidge could hardly say _no_ after she’d helped so much.

Pidge hummed in satisfaction as the victory music played for her again. Sleepy - she’d been up most of last night working on the interface, it was _fascinating_ , and potentially very useful, learning how to integrate Altean tech with less sophisticated stuff - she laughed and bowed out to let the boys face off without her for a while.

She leaned on Lance’s shoulder, watching the screen, snickering when one or the other of them made an obvious mistake. She was glad she’d thought of this - and glad Allura had been able, and willing, to help with the translation protocols and repurposing the room.

Pidge yawned, sliding down a little more heavily against Lance. After a moment he shifted, gentle hands nudging her over and down, and Pidge stretched, now lying with her head and shoulders in Lance’s lap. Keith draped an arm companionably over her shins as her legs fell into _his_ lap, and she got comfy there.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come by and prompt me/chat on [Tumblr](http://kalira9.tumblr.com/).


End file.
